Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger drop out of Hogwarts to look for the remaining three Horcruxes. Soon they find out about the Deathly Hallows, the Resurrection Stone, The Elder Wand, and The Invisibility Cloak. The Resurrection Stone can revive the dead, The owner of the Elder Wand can never be defeated in a duel, and The Invisibility Cloak makes the person wearing it truly invisible, even from death itself. Harry has the cloak (he got it from his father), and the stone was in the snitch he got from Dumbledore and the Elder Wand. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on 21 July 2007, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This book chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and leads to the long-awaited final confrontation between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing, in the United States by Scholastic, in Canada by Raincoast Books, and in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin. Released globally in ninety-three countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever. It sold 15 million copies in the first twenty-four hours following its release,[1] including more than 11 million in the U.S. and U.K. alone. The previous record, nine million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.[2] The novel has also been translated into numerous languages, including Ukrainian,[3] Swedish,[4] Polish[5]and Hindi.[6] Several awards were given to the novel, including the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award, and it was listed as a "Best Book for Young Adults" by the American Library Association.[7] Reception to the book was generally positive, although some reviewers found the characters to be repetitive or unchanging. A two-part film based on the novel is in the works, with part one's release date in November 2010. Synopsis Epigraphs For the first time in the series, Rowling placed two epigraphs at the beginning of the book. The first is a passage from the play [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Libation_Bearers The Libation-Bearers] by the Greek playwright Aeschylus. The second is a passage from More Fruits of Solitude by the Quaker leader William Penn. Dedication All the books in the Harry Potter series have dedications. On the dedication page for this book, the unusual layout resembles the shape of Harry's scar. Plot introduction Throughout the six previous novels in the Harry Potter series, the main character, Harry Potter, has struggled with the inherent difficulties of adolescence along with being a famous wizard. When Harry was a baby, Lord Voldemort, a powerful evil wizard, murdered Harry's parents but mysteriously vanished after attempting to kill Harry. This results in Harry's immediate fame, and his being placed in the care of his muggle, or non-magical, relatives Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Harry re-enters the wizarding world at age 11, enrolling in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and is soon confronted by Lord Voldemort, who is trying to regain power (and a body). Returning to school after summer break, there are several attacks on students after the legendary "Chamber of Secrets" is thought to be opened. Harry ends the attacks by killing a Basilisk and defeating Lord Voldemort's "memory" stored in an enchanted diary. The following year, Harry hears that he has been targeted by escaped murderer Sirius Black. Despite stringent security measures at Hogwarts, Harry is confronted by Black at the end of his third year of schooling and Harry learns that Black was framed and is his godfather. Harry's fourth year of school sees him entered in a dangerous magical competition called the Triwizard Tournament. At the conclusion of the Tournament, Harry witnesses the return of Lord Voldemort to full strength. When the next school year begins, the Ministry of Magic appoints Dolores Umbridge as the new High Inquisitor of Hogwarts. After forming an underground student group in opposition to Umbridge, Harry and several of his friends face off against Voldemort'sDeath Eaters, a group of Dark witches and wizards, and narrowly defeat them. In Harry's sixth year of school, he learns that Voldemort has been using Horcruxes to become immortal. Horcruxes are fragments of the soul that are placed within an object so that when the body dies, a part of the soul remains and the person can be regenerated or resurrected.[8] However, the destruction of the creator's body leaves the wizard or witch in a state of half-life, without corporeal form.[9] When returning from a mission to discover a Horcrux, Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster of the school and Harry's mentor, is murdered by Severus Snape, a teacher at the school with whom Harry is consistently at odds and who Harry has suspected of being a Death Eater. At the conclusion of the book, Harry pledges not to return to school the following year and to search for Horcruxes instead. Plot summary Following Dumbledore's death, Voldemort has completed his ascension to power and gains control of the Ministry of Magic. Harry, Ron, and Hermione drop out of school so that they can find and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. They isolate themselves to ensure the safety of their family and friends. They do not have much knowledge about the remaining Horcruxes except the possibility that two of them are objects that belonged to Hogwarts founders Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff, and that the third is Nagini, Voldemort's snakefamiliar. The locations of the two founders' objects are unknown, and Nagini is presumed to be with Voldemort himself. As they search for the Horcruxes, the trio learn details about Dumbledore's past, as well as Snape's true motives. The trio recovers the first of Voldemort's Horcruxes, Salazar Slytherin's locket, by infiltrating the Ministry of Magic. They recover the Sword ofGodric Gryffindor; it is one of a few objects that can be used to destroy Horcruxes, and they use it to destroy the locket. In their travels the trio come across a strange symbol, which an eccentric wizard named Xenophilius Lovegood tells them represents the mythical Deathly Hallows. The Hallows are revealed to be three sacred objects: the Resurrection Stone, a stone with the power to bring others back to life; the Elder Wand, an unbeatable wand; and an infallible Invisibility Cloak. Harry learns that Voldemort is after the Elder Wand, but the trio decides that discovering Voldemort's Horcruxes is more important than procuring the wand for themselves. They break into Bellatrix Lestrange's vault at the Wizarding Bank Gringotts to recover another Horcrux, the cup of Helga Hufflepuff. Harry learns that another Horcrux is hidden in Hogwarts, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione enter the school. They find this Horcrux, the Diadem of Ravenclaw, and successfully destroy both. The book culminates in the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, in conjunction with students and members of the wizarding world opposed to the rise of Voldemort, defend Hogwarts from Voldemort, his Death Eaters, and various magical creatures. Several major characters are killed in the first wave of the battle. Harry discovers that Voldemort inadvertently made Harry a Horcrux when he attacked him as a baby, and that he would have to die to destroy Voldemort. Harry surrenders himself to Voldemort, who attacks Harry with the Killing Curse, sending Harry to a sort of Limbo between life and death. There, Harry meets Dumbledore who explains that because Voldemort used Harry's blood to regain his full strength, Harry is protected from any harm that Voldemort could commit, meaning that the Horcrux inside of Harry is destroyed but that he can return to his body despite being hit by the Killing Curse. Harry then returns to his body, the battle resumes, and after the last remaining Horcrux is destroyed, Harry is able to defeat Voldemort. Epilogue Nineteen years later, Harry and Ginny Weasley are married and have three children: James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna. Ronmarried Hermione and has two children, Rose and Hugo. The families meet at King's Cross station, where a nervous Albus is departing for his first year at Hogwarts. Harry's godson, Teddy Lupin, is found kissing Victoire Weasley (Bill and Fleur's daughter) in a train carriage. Harry sees Draco Malfoy and his wife Astoria Greengrass (revealed on Rowling's website behind the door) with their son, Scorpius. Neville Longbottom is now a Hogwarts Herbology professor and remains friends with the two families. Harry comforts Albus, who is worried he will be sorted into Slytherin, and tells his son that one of his two namesakes, Severus Snape, was a Slytherin and the bravest man he had ever met. He adds that the Sorting Hat takes one's choice into account, like it did for Harry. The book ends with these final words: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well." Background Choice of title Rowling on finishing the book Rowling completed the book while staying at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh in January 2007, and left a signed statement on a marble bustof Hermes in her room which read: "J. K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11 January 2007".[20] In a statement on her website, she said, "I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric." She compared her mixed feelings to those expressed by Charles Dickens in the preface of the 1850 edition of David Copperfield, "a two-years' imaginative task." "To which," she added, "I can only sigh, try seventeen years, Charles..." She ended her message, "Deathly Hallows is my favourite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series."[21] When asked before publication about the forthcoming book, Rowling stated that she could not change the ending even if she wanted. "These books have been plotted for such a long time, and for six books now, that they're all leading a certain direction. So, I really can't."[22] She also commented that the final volume related closely to the previous book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, "almost as though they are two halves of the same novel."[23] She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the series.[24] Release For more details on this topic, see Harry Potter fandom. Marketing and promotion The launch was celebrated by an all-night book signing and reading at the Natural History Museum in London, which Rowling attended along with 1700 guests chosen by ballot.[25] Rowling toured the US in October 2007, where another event was held at Carnegie Hall in New York with tickets allocated by sweepstake.[26] Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter series, launched a multi-million dollar "There will soon be 7" marketing campaign with a 'Knight Bus' travelling to forty libraries across the United States, online fan discussions and competitions, collectible bookmarks, tattoos, and the staged release of seven Deathly Hallows''questions most debated by fans.[27] In the build-up to the book's release, Scholastic released seven questions that fans would find answered in the final book:[28] #Who will live? Who will die? #Is Snape good or evil? #Will Hogwarts reopen? #Who ends up with whom? #Where are the Horcruxes? #Will Voldemort be defeated? #What are the Deathly Hallows? Scholastic also hosted "Harry Potter Place"—a magical and interactive street celebration at Scholastic headquarters in New York City, where the first U.S. signed edition of ''Deathly Hallows was unveiled on 20 July 2007. The festivities included a twenty foot (six metre) high Whomping Willow, face-painting, wand-making, fire-eaters, magicians, jugglers and stilt-walkers.[29] J. K. Rowling arranged with her publishers for a poster bearing the face of the missing British child Madeleine McCann to be made available to book sellers when Deathly Hallows was launched on 21 July 2007 and said that she hoped that the posters would be displayed prominently in shops all over the world.[30] Spoiler embargo Rowling made a public request that anyone with information about the content of the last book should keep it to themselves, in order to avoid spoiling the experience for other readers.[31] To this end, Bloomsbury invested GB£10 million in an attempt to keep the book's contents secure until the 21 July release date.[32] Arthur Levine, U.S. editor of the Harry Potter series, denied distributing any copies of Deathly Hallows in advance for press review, but two U.S. papers published early reviews anyway.[33] There was speculation that some shops would break the embargo and distribute copies of the book early, as the penalty imposed for previous instalments—that the distributor would not be supplied with any further copies of the series—would no longer be a deterrent.[34] Online leaks and early delivery In the week before its release, a number of texts purporting to be genuine leaks appeared in various forms. On 16 July, a set of photographs representing all 759 pages of the U.S. edition was leaked and was fully transcribed prior to the official release date.[35][36][37][38] The photographs later appeared on websites and peer-to-peer networks, leading Scholastic to seek a subpoena in order to identify one source.[39]This represented the most serious security breach in the Harry Potter series' history.[40] Rowling and her lawyer confirmed that there were genuine online leaks.[41] Reviews published in both The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times on 18 July 2007 corroborated many of the plot elements from this leak, and about one day prior to release, The New York Times confirmed that the main circulating leak was real.[40] Scholastic announced that approximately one-ten-thousandth (0.0001) of the U.S. supply had been shipped early — interpreted to mean about 1,200 copies. One reader in Maryland received a copy of the book in the mail from DeepDiscount.com four days before it was launched, which evoked incredulous responses from both Scholastic and DeepDiscount. Scholastic initially reported that they were satisfied it had been a "human error" and would not discuss possible penalties;[42] however, the following day Scholastic announced that it would be launching legal action against DeepDiscount.com and its distributor, Levy Home Entertainment.[43] Scholastic filed for damages in Chicago's Circuit Court of Cook County, claiming that DeepDiscount engaged in a "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book."[44] Some of the early release books soon appeared on eBay, in one case being sold to Publishers Weekly for US$250 from an initial price of US$18.[45] In Nurmes, Finland, a supermarket sold copies of the English edition as early as 19 July, apparently owing to a misunderstanding on the part of an employee. Price wars and other controversies Asda,[46][47] along with several other UK supermarkets, had already taken pre-orders for the book at a heavily discounted price. Asda then sparked a price war two days before the book's launch by announcing they would sell it for just GB£5 a copy (about US$8). Other retail chains then also offered the book at discounted prices. At these prices the book became a loss leader. This caused uproar from traditional UK booksellers who argued they had no hope of competing in those conditions. Independent shops protested loudest, but even Waterstone's, the UK's largest dedicated chain bookstore, could not compete with the supermarket price. Some small bookstores hit back by buying their stock from the supermarkets rather than their wholesalers. Asda attempted to counter this by imposing a limit of two copies per customer to prevent bulk purchases. Philip Wicks, a spokesman for the UK Booksellers Association, said, "It is a war we can't even participate in. We think it's a crying shame that the supermarkets have decided to treat it as a loss-leader, like a can of baked beans." Michael Norris, an analyst at Simba Information, said: "You are not only lowering the price of the book. At this point, you are lowering the value of reading."[48] In Malaysia, a similar price war caused controversy regarding sales of the book.[49] Four of the biggest bookstore chains in Malaysia, MPH Bookstores, Popular Bookstores, Times and Harris, decided to pull Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows off their shelves as a protest againstTesco and Carrefour hypermarkets. The retail price of the book in Malaysia is MYR 109.90 (about GB£16), while the hypermarkets Tesco andCarrefour sold the book at MYR 69.90 (about GB£10). The move by the bookstores was seen as an attempt to pressure the distributorPenguin Books to remove the books from the hypermarkets. However, as of 24 July 2007, the price war has ended, with the four bookstores involved resuming selling the books in their stores with discount. Penguin Books has also confirmed that Tesco and Carrefour are selling the book at a loss, urging them to practice good business sense and fair trade.[50] The book's early Saturday morning release in Israel was criticised for violating Shabbat. Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai commented "It is forbidden, according to Jewish values and Jewish culture, that a thing like this should take place at 2 a.m. on Saturday. Let them do it on another day."[51] Yishai indicated that he would issue indictments and fines based on the Hours of Work and Rest Law.[52] Publication and reception Critical response The Baltimore Sun's critic, Mary Carole McCauley, praised the series as "a classic bildungsroman, or coming-of-age tale." She noted that the book was more serious than the previous novels in the series and had more straightforward prose.[53] Furthermore, reviewer Alice Fordham from The Times writes that "Rowling’s genius is not just her total realisation of a fantasy world, but the quieter skill of creating characters that bounce off the page, real and flawed and brave and lovable." Fordham concludes, "We have been a long way together, and neither Rowling nor Harry let us down in the end."[54] New York Times writer Michiko Kakutani agrees, praising Rowling's ability to make Harry both a hero and a character that can be related to.[55] Time magazine's Lev Grossman named it one of the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007, ranking it at #8, and praising Rowling for proving that books can still be a global mass medium. Grossman compared the novel to the earlier books in the series thus: "This isn't the most elegant of the Potter volumes, but it feels like an ending, the final iteration of Rowling's abiding thematic concern: the overwhelming importance of continuing to love in the face of death."[56][57] Novelist Elizabeth Hand agreed that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows caps off the series, but also made the criticism that "...the spectacularly complex interplay of narrative and character often reads as though an entire trilogy's worth of summing-up has been crammed into one volume."[58] In contrast, Jenny Sawyer of the Christian Science Monitor says that, "There is much to love about the Harry Potter series, from its brilliantly realised magical world to its multilayered narrative," however, "A story is about someone who changes. And, puberty aside, Harry doesn't change much. As envisioned by Rowling, he walks the path of good so unwaveringly that his final victory over Voldemort feels, not just inevitable, but hollow."[59] In the 12 August 2007 New York Times, Christopher Hitchens compared the series to World War Two-era English boarding school stories, and while he wrote that "Rowling has won imperishable renown" for the series as a whole, he also stated that he disliked Rowling's use of deus ex machina, that the mid-book camping chapters are "abysmally long", and that Voldemort "becomes more tiresome than an Ian Fleming villain."[60] Stephen King criticised the reactions of some reviewers to the books, including McCauley, for jumping too quickly to surface conclusions of the work.[61] He felt this was inevitable, because of the extreme secrecy before launch which did not allow reviewers time to read and consider the book, but meant that many early reviews lacked depth. Rather than finding the writing style disappointing, he felt it had matured and improved. He acknowledged that the subject matter of the books had become more adult, and that Rowling had clearly been writing with the adult audience firmly in mind since the middle of the series. He compared the works in this respect to Huckleberry Finn and Alice in Wonderland which achieved success and have become established classics, in part by appealing to the adult audience as well as children. Sales Sales for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were record setting. The initial U.S. print run for Deathly Hallows was 12 million copies, and more than a million were pre-ordered through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.[62] On 12 April 2007, Barnes & Noble declared that Deathly Hallows had broken its pre-order record, with more than 500,000 copies pre-ordered through its site.[63] On opening day, a record 8.3 million copies were sold in the United States (over 96 per second),[64][65] and 2.65 million copies in the United Kingdom.[66] At WH Smith, sales reportedly reached a rate of 15 books sold per second.[67] By June 2008, nearly a year after it was published, worldwide sales were reportedly around 44 million.[68] Awards and honours Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has won several awards.[7] In 2007, the book was named one New York Times 100 Notable Books,[69] and one of its Notable Children's Books.[70] Publishers Weekly also listed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows among their Best Books of 2007.[71] In 2008, the American Library Association named the novel one of its Best Books for Young Adults,[72] and also listed it as a Notable Children's Book.[73] Furthermore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows received the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award.[7] Translations Main article: Harry Potter in translation Due to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' worldwide fame, it has been translated into many languages. The first translation to be released was the Ukrainian translation, on 25 September 2007 (as Гаррі Поттер і смертельні реліквії).[3] The Swedish title of the book was revealed by Rowling as Harry Potter and the Relics of Death (Harry Potter och Dödsrelikerna), following a pre-release question from the Swedish publisher about the difficulty of translating the two words "Deathly Hallows" without having read the book.[4] This is also the title used for the French translation (Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort). The first Polish translation was released on 26 January 2008[5] with a new title:Harry Potter i Insygnia Śmierci - Harry Potter and the Insignia of Death.[74] The Hindi translation Harry Potter aur Maut ke Tohfe (हैरी पॉटर और मौत के तोहफे) translated as "Harry Potter and the Gifts of Death" was released by Manjul Publication in India on 27 June 2008.[6] Film adaptation Main article: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (film) A two-part film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is planned, with David Yates directing both parts. Part I is slated for release on 19 November 2010, and Part II on 15 July 2011.[75][76] The script was delayed as Steve Kloves did not start working on it until the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike had ended.[77] Filming began in February 2009 and ended on Saturday, 12 June 2010.[78] Category:Harry Potter novels